12 April 2011

Laughing at socks (again)

When I saw the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre back in September I went by myself, not risking the experiment on other people, but I when I went back just seven months later I brought five other people with me.

We approached Leicester Square from different directions so it was sensible to arrange a meeting point and even more sensible to pick the original Pizza Express in Wardour Street. Pizza and wine consumed we walked the short distance to the Leicester Square Theatre where I successfully convinced that the two PDF attachments on my phone entitled us all to entry. Who prints tickets?

Once inside I managed to get a few words with author, performer and general star, Kev.

He was just back from giving a performance in Aarhus, Denmark which I have been to so the opener was on how well jokes that rely heavily on cultural references go down with people who do not watch British TV. Quite well apparently.

This time I was prepared for laughter which was just as well as it was soon required.

The Socks are in many ways a traditional double act with a straight guy and a silly guy, the difference being that they are the same guy.

This is quite hard to believe at times so well established are the two characters. At one point one sock told the other off for ad libbing as though he really was not expecting the line!

The Socks are anarchic, which is to say that the script, such as it is, consists of a few defined sketches and songs loosely laced together with free-form interplay between the two Socks.

Some of the sketches work better than others and I think that there was some new stuff in the show that is still settling down. The second half was a lot stronger than the first and was near faultless.

And I don't count dropped props as a fault, that happens so often it's an integral part of the show. Another excuse for ad libbing, such as doing part of the Star Wars scene in an Elvis costume!

The whole point of going to see the Socks is to laugh. Out loud. A lot. And that's exactly what we all did.

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